Recognition: A Reworking
by BarbedWire
Summary: Basically an alternative version of Chapter 3 and an alternative ending to the story.  K   may be a steep rating, but I don't want to put it too low.


**Author's Note:  
>This was originally an English assignment from last year. I am posting because a) I actually sorto of enjoyed this and b) I wanted to figure out how to use the site.<br>I had a surprising amount of fun writing like Hawthorne, and the story plot itself can basically be pinned on how much I hated the book by the time I wrote this.  
>I do not own the Scarlet Letter, that belongs to Nathaniel Hawthorne.<br>If you feel it nessecary to flame something as pointless as this, then be my guest. Normal reviews will be much appreciated.**

A Scarlett Letter Fan Fiction  
>A Reworking of Chapter 3: Recognition<p>

When the townsperson had finished explaining Hester's state the scholar could only nod and stare fixedly.

Since learning of his impending release, he had been thinking of little else besides the time when he and Hester would reunite. He had been dreaming of finding her settled in a comfortable home, where she would greet him with all the smiles and warmth that such a long absence and so thrilling a tale might entitle him.

To find her thus! On public shame for this of all sins! Watching her stand there with the cursed babe in her arms, otherwise alone, with her chin still held pride fully, and defiantly high, filled him with such unfathomable rage. He had deserved the comforts of a pleasant home and smiling wife. He deserved them now more than he ever could have before. And on the very day when he might receive all that his old heart longed for, to find her thus!

Hester stood alone, but she could not be alone in this sin. Any one of these around him could be the snake who had poisoned her against him.

His rage was such that he wanted to set fire to the whole town, and revel in the joy of watching these people smolder. At the same time, he wanted to turn around and run back into the woods, and die there, where he could only remember the young Hester who had been the sunshine of his life.

Only partially aware of it himself, the scholar stepped forward into the crowd and opened his mouth, "This woman, this Hester Prynne is my wife!" he shouted. The babble of the crowd instantly died, and its entirety turned accusatory faces towards him. "Tis true!" he went on, watching Hester pale on the scaffold. "I am her husband. The presumed dead Mr. Prynne! I have been held these long years amongst these Indians!" he pointed to the formidable and now uncomfortable looking Indian by the woods. "But I have returned now, and had hoped to begin my life once more. But one among you has robbed me of that chance. I implore he who is guilty to step forward, and wear his shame like a man! Like Providence hath intended!" At the close of his speech, he found his anger changed. It was no longer the rage which demanded immediate action, but a more complex kind of anger, which led him to a sort of calm, which he used to think.

The crowd, in reaction to his pleas could think of no solution save Hester's immediate execution. The scholar, no longer aware of what was going on, offered no objection. The fervor of the crowd left Hester with nothing to do but clutch her child closer to her bosom and look around hopelessly for help.

"Stop!" the sound caused everyone to start, for it came from the balcony, and the very lips of the young Minister Dimmesdale, "Hester Prynne is no greater a sinner then I, and far less than many others. Wouldst thou punish me this way? Pray, stop, and think. Let God have his revenge upon her, sully not thine own souls with this black justice. I entreat you to let her live! Let her wear her scarlet letter, and bear her shame. Let her warn others against such sin. Leave the rest to God!" The young minister appeared so moved by his speech; many were wavering in the face of his sincerity.

"Thou speaketh well, good sir," began the scholar becoming once more awake to his surroundings, "It would seem that your heart truly goes out to Mistress Prynne. Perhaps thou carest too much for her piteous state." Dimmesdale reddened, but his passion didn't subside.

"Tis the duty of every one of us to give pity and sympathy to those who art lost. Wouldst thou not offer mercy and forgiveness? Would not those sweet kindnesses taste better on thy tongue then revenge and anger? Tis God's gift to all man, forgiveness, and Satan's curse our anger be. Hester Prynne and co-sinner will suffer. Tis too true to doubt, they will suffer and regret at God's vengeance much more then we could ever make them hurt or repent. Leave the vengeance for God, my brothers I implore you. Spare Hester this fate!" the crowd, no longer aware of which impassioned man they should follow, could only look from one to the other doubtfully.

"Why, pray you sir, is it that thou is the only one of thy noble profession to preach for this woman's life? Dost thou care so deeply? Wouldst thou stand beside her and bear her fate upon your shoulders?" This speech from the scholar was met with such an uproar of disgust and indignation from the crowd. That this man could accuse the well-loved minister of anything more than the just distribution of mercy brought them to fear and mistrust the scholar. They then turned their eyes to the minister and implored him to shoot down the man's hateful accusation.

The minister, looked as though his wind had been knocked out of him, he put his hand over his heart and looked down at Hester for a moment before he dissolved the silence. "If I thought that it would save her, nay if I thought it would help her at all, I should gladly take up her lot. I should hope that all men would act thus, regardless of their guilt." The minister's response, seemed to be all that the public wanted to hear. They looked up at the minister with such admiration and respect, all these sentiments which were presently lost on Dimmesdale.

"Noble and righteous sacrifice indeed, minister, but you avoid my purpose." Answered the scholar, who was equally impervious to the sentiments of the crowd.

Dimmesdale closed his eyes and clasped his hand still tighter to his chest. During the two men's debate, the mass had all but forgotten Hester, who stood on the scaffold, unaware if she would die today, and unsure as to which outcome she wanted. In light of the scholar's most recent abuses of the minister, Hester found the voice that she had been unsuccessful in rising to a scream on own behalf.

"Stop! All of you vultures! Leave the poor minister be. Your qualm is with me! Leave him be!" there was a fever in Hester's eyes that would have persuaded all but the sea to back down, had they been close enough to see it.

Unfortunately, Hester's defense was a more solid proof to the scholar then a confession would have been. "Ah, my dear Hester, perhaps it is thou I should have asked. Wouldst thou take up the guilt and shame of this minister of thine? Wouldst thou carry his pain, and his secrets in his place? To thine own grave would thou carry all the weight of his good name? Pray, tell me Hester, wouldst thou have died now to spare the memory of this man?"

Hester uttered something incomprehensible and glared at her husband with so much hate it was a wonder he could not feel it burn his heart. The crowd too, looked at him with hate, but they were too enthralled to take action. They placed themselves in the role of audience in this play of three.

The scholar turned away from Hester, back to Dimmesdale. "And would thou have let this woman carry all thy weight? He who preaches mercy and forgiveness, would thou have relied on the strength of one woman, and asked her to suffer, that his pleasant life may continue? Tis hardly holy what thou would do, what thou hath done minister."

Whatever the crowd was hoping Dimmesdale would reply, it was not what he was about to say. "There is truth in what he hath said," began he with his hand on his heart, and his head turned away, "I am the worst type of sinner, my brothers. For it is true, I hath lied to you, and I hath done Hester Prynne a terrible wrong. For a time, I thought mine own shame would be punishment enough, but twas a vain hope. Born from a vain mind, who dreams he may guide God's own hand, and fancies he can assign his own price to the sins that He hath laid out. Now, to prove me wrong, Providence hath sent this man, to reveal to thou my truest self. Behold the scarlet letter on her bosom, burns too on my breast!" and to a great shock and uproar, the minister laid bare his chest to reveal, faintly red against his skin, the outline of a great 'A'.

A small smile tipped the corner of the scholar's lips, and he whispered to himself, "I was not mistaken".

The scarlet letter was a short lived punishment, for when the hurt and betrayed crowd bore Hester and Dimmesdale away, two executions occurred that day. Their child, was given to the scholar, who set up residence in the town and raised her as his own. If she grew up to be peculiar, it was either due to his own peculiar ways, or the subtle peculiarities of her own nature. If she ever wondered whom her mother had been, she never asked, and the town, embarrassed and hurt by the betrayal of one they trusted so well, never breathed a word to a living soul that Hester Prynne, or Arthur Dimmesdale had ever been.


End file.
